


Drunken Lullabies

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:31:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Richard are at the sitter's when Mr. Moriarty decides it's finally time to take them home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drunken Lullabies

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning for implied child abuse. Sorry.  
> Richard is six years old. Jim and Sebastian are both ten.  
> Thanks for reading! My tumblr is brokentoysniper.tumblr.com. I take prompts and beta.

“Rich, you’re too old to be playing with dolls, don’t you think?” Jim reaches over, grabbing the copper-haired figure out of his younger brother’s hands.

At just a young age, Rich Moriarty had resembled his brother so closely; former teachers of Jim’s often stopped him in the halls for a reminiscent chat. Not knowing what to do, the 6-year-old would simply smile and nod, putting on his best imitation of his brother until the teacher left him alone. He hated it; it made him feel like he was dirty, like he was lying. And Jim told him never to lie.

“No!” Rich shrieks. “Give them back! I promised to protect them!”

Jim rolls his eyes, ignoring his brother’s feeble attempts to reclaim the stolen toys. With his father gone, Jim worries about Rich. Just not enough to do anything about it.

o.O.o

_Downstairs_

Rachel hears a shrieking sound, and she jumps out of her skin, her hand tightening on the pen rolling between her teeth. She looks over in the direction of the noise, reminding herself it was just the kettle.

Because it’s the first time the sixteen-year old is alone with both boys in her own house, she’s more than a little apprehensive. She loves them both; they keep out of trouble and she’s spent more time watching Disney movies with them than she has with her actual sister.

She prepares her tea with shaking hands, placing the boning knife on the counter next to the phone, just in case.

The doorbell rings, and she knocks over her ceramic mug. Rachel glances at the clock as she mops it up – 5:14. _But Mrs. Brooks isn’t supposed to pick the munchkins up for another hour._ She crosses through herkitchen, narrowly avoiding stepping on Jim’s science project - _hopefully he hasn’t made chlorine gas again, my mother was so pissed last time -_ and peers through the curtained window beside the door.

The man standing outside is tall and lean, wearing a plaid shirt under a cozy sweater. He sees the curious teenager peering through the window and gives a shy wave. Even through the frosted glass, his anxious demeanour makes her feel more than a bit nervous.

She cracks open the door.

“Hi. Can I help you?” she asks. The man wears a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

 _Why do you look so sad?_ The question dances on her lips, never quite leaking out.

“I’m here to pick up Jim and Rich,” he says, gesturing into the house. She shifts, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m their father.”

Rachel jumps. She’s heard stories about this man, and had seen the bruises studded across Jim’s collarbone to match. It had taken weeks for them to heal, and he still has a scar across his cheek from a belt buckle.

Though he tried to hide them with long sleeves, clutched in his fists like a safety blanket, she’s seen the dark finger-marks around his wrist, the discolorations on his collarbone beneath his shirt. And occasionally, when he climbed onto the counters to reach for a glass from the top shelf, his shirt rode up just a little, and visible handprints could be seen on his bony hips.

There was only one reason for the marks to be located there.

Rachel had to swallow back the thick feeling swelling in the back of her mouth, the vomit she knew would rise if she opened her mouth. But she was very good at holding herself together – she had had a lifetime to practice.

And when Jim would turn back to her, the glass with Ringo Starr printed on it clutched in his tiny hand, he would smile. And, after swooping his tiny frame into an embrace and trying not to stain his t-shirt, she would smile right on back.

o.O.o

 “Leave,” she commands, preparing to shut the door. “Now. Or I’m calling the cops.”

The man smiles, his face awash with pure innocence. He places a hand on the door, fighting the small girl to push it open.

He overcomes her easily, invading her house.

_Oh god, the boys._

Her shriek, the only one she emits before Mr. Moriarty silences her, echoes up and down the hallway, like a siren call.

o.O.o

“Shh,” Jim commands. In an attempt to silence the wails of his younger brother, he hands back the doll.

“What is it, Jim-Jim?” Rich asks, combing his fingers through her long hair.

Jim is silent for a moment.

He hears a heavy thump. Moments later, heavy footsteps begin ascending the stairs.

Too heavy to belong to a teenage girl.

Jim scurries over to the closet, throwing the doors open and dragging the heavy toy trunk along with him. He stands on it and turns to Richard.

“Come here,” he commands. Rich looks longingly at the doll; Jim rolls his eyes. “You can take it with you.”

“Her,” Rich corrects, complying. Jim had scouted out the entire room before and, to his pleasure, discovered an alcove above the closet where he and Rich had pretended to be pirates thrown in the brig.

“Remember what I said about good pirates?” Jim asks, picking up his brother and ushering him into the makeshift attic.

“They never beg for mercy?”

“Good. Now keep quiet, bunny.”

Jim jumps down and closes the closet doors, with only a breath of time before the bedroom door creaks open.

“Jim,” a voice calls, “Rich, it’s time to come home with daddy.” The door opens fully, and Jim sees his father enter the room.

His heart jumps, and for a moment he sees Richard, curled up in a ball on the dirty floor of the flat and feels the softness of the boy’s hair underneath his fingers, only marred by the sticky sensation of fresh blood.

He’s filled with the unshakeable urge to vomit, to throw something, to burst into tears and pound his father’s skull with his tiny, ineffectual fists.

But he knows none of the above will work, because it is his father and he’s heard relatives say this is the man from whom he inherited his intelligence.

So he fakes is.

Jim looks up at him innocently. “Okay, daddy.”

The man looks around.

“Where’s Rich?” he asks, crossing his arms. Jim dons a mask of confusion.

“Rich is with auntie today,” he fibs. His father crosses the room, grabbing a fistful of Jim’s t-shirt.

Jim is not afraid. He once was, but not anymore.

“Then why aren’t _you_ with auntie today?” He reaches into his back pocket, drawing out a bowie knife already covered in blood, stroking it daintily across Jim’s face, smearing red across the boy’s pale cheeks.

“Daddy, I – “ Jim shrieks as the blade is pushed in. A red-hot pain ricochets through his face, short-circuiting his brain. It feels as though his face is on fire. The knife is pushed in deeper, deeper, until Jim feels as though it will never be pulled out. But, just as suddenly as the pain started, it stops.

Jim is dropped to the floor with a thud. He resists the urge to run his fingers through the cut, parting the flaps of skin and checking to see if he can feel bone, before realizing why he was dropped.

His father has turned his back to Jim, and he is staring around the room. The man walks over to the bed, checking under it, pulling back the cover.

“Richie,” he sings, “where are you? I give up, you win this round. You can come out now.” Jim hopes against hope that Rich has enough sense to stay hidden. Satisfied with the bed, his father crosses to the corner of the room, checking behind the black circular chair.

He turns towards the closet, throwing open the doors. Jim’s heart stops – from where he is standing, he can see Rich’s gold-toed socks peeking out from his hiding place. But his father is checking behind the clothes, oblivious to what is resting just above his head.

“Jim,” Mr. Moriarty says, “tell your brother to come out now.”

o.O.o

Rich holds Felicity closer. He can hear a rustling beneath him, and doesn’t dare to draw his legs up to his chest. That voice – it makes him freeze with fear. Memories of it flooding his ears with words Jim later told him not to repeat, threats that would make a grown man burst into tears, and drunken whispers pressed too close to his ear enter into Rich’s mind.

“…to come out now.” Rich tries not to jump. If Jim tells him to, it must be okay, right? Jim would never let anything hurt his baby brother. He had already proved it by making sure Rich got only a third as many scars as he.

“He’s not here,” he hears a small voice say. More rustling.

“What did you say?”

“He’s at a friend's house. Mommy split us up because she knew you’d come looking.”

“Take me to him.” These words are growled. Rich hears a sharp slap, a whimper, and the slam of a door. He doesn’t move, doesn’t trust himself.

Because what if daddy comes back?

What if Jim doesn’t?

o.O.o

Being dragged down the steps doesn’t distract Jim from the blood smeared across his father’s hand. Blood that doesn’t belong to Jim.

He sees Rachel awkwardly slumped over on the slate floor. Her pretty brown hair hangs in a disarray around her face. Her pale eyes are shut, permanently, and her neck is slashed open.

Jim does not shriek. He does not cry, or call out. He gulps, and allows himself to be taken out the front door and into his father’s mustang, the old paint already chipping off.

“Where is he?” the man growls, locking the door and stepping on the gas before Jim has a chance to fasten his seatbelt.

“He’s in Asbury. 12 Cricket Way, the house with the well out front.” They drive for a brief moment before Mr. Moriarty pulls into the parking lot behind a closed convenience store.

“Why are we stopping?” Jim asks. Mr. Moriarty roughly pulls him out of the car, putting a hand over his son’s mouth to silence him. He leads him around, popping open the trunk and forcing him in.

“Thanks, Jimmy, maybe we can pick up ice-cream when we find your brother.”

o.O.o

 

“Got you now, you little bastard!” The blonde ten-year old yells at his television screen. A doorbell chimes, and he pauses his game.

He leaves his absurdly white living room to peek through the windows, noticing the unusual man and opening the door.

“Can I help you, Sir?” he asks, straightening his back and trying desperately not to straighten his unruly pajamas. The man smiles.

“Yes, actually. Is Richie around? I’m his father, I’m here to pick him up.” Though Sebastian’s blood runs cold, he does not falter. He had heard stories, whispered behind closed doors, about Mr. Moriarty.

Sebastian knew that, although they had been best friends for the past three years, they were the kind of friends that shot air rifles at squirrels and had Star Wars marathons (Sebastian found the amount of attention Jim paid to those movies bloody hilarious).

They snuck out at two in the morning for donut runs at the local grocery store, passed notes during class, and took trips to the science museum, always making sure to leave their mark on the exhibits by scratching JM and SM into the wooden rails.

They pry into each other’s personal lives, learning about test scores, family secrets, and future goals. But the one thing that has always remained off-limits was Jim’s father.

Jim’s tired eyes, his wounds, his (lack of) smile; all this told Sebastian the story more clearly than adults ever could.

o.O.o

Jim can’t breathe; it’s a feeling he’s used to. Before, when his father came home, it became a ritual for his mother to hide him and Richard in a toy trunk, only letting them out when she could hear deep snoring coming from the other room.

This time, he knows there’s no mother to pull him from the abyss.

He breathes. He feels along in the darkness for the trunk release, hoping that he can take the easy way out.

Not finding anything, he begins pounding on the wall into the back seat. He had heard his father leave the car, maybe he can sneak out. He holds back a cry of relief as a small latch opens up, flooding the trunk with light. He wriggles through, twisting his torso in a way that should earn him a pass into Cirque du Solei, and inhales a lungful of that new-car smell. So, he realizes, his father must have premeditated this, and purposefully removed the latch from the trunk.

Jim peers out the window, relieved to see his father’s back turned. He is about to open the car door when, thinking better of it, he reaches an arm into the trunk and extracts the crowbar. He silently pushes the door open, never taking his eyes off his father. Sebastian’s answered the door, and the two seem to be conversing.

 _Dear lord,_ Jim prays, _if Sebastian’s half the best friend I want him to be, please let him realize the danger that he’s in._

When both boys were in the second grade, Sebastian had found out that he had a blonde-haired sister, who drowned the year before he was born. He hadn’t left his room for days after that, and Jim had resorted to scaling the oak-tree outside his room and balancing on the roof and tapping on the window. Sebastian had only opened it in fear that the boy would fall if he didn’t. Jim didn’t ask any questions, he just offered a sleeve of chocolate cookies he kept stashed under his jacket and a can of Pepsi.

He had slept in Sebastian’s twin bed that night, close enough to run his fingers through feathery blonde hair and smell the scent of mint-flavored toothpaste on Sebastian’s breath.

Neither boy mentioned it ever again. But now, seeing Sebastian an arms length away from the monster that was his father, Jim wishes he had.

At that moment, he realizes that his father intends to hurt anyone who stands between him and his son.

Anyone, including Sebastian.

And Jim will never let that happen.

o.O.o

“Uhm, give me a second to get him,” Sebastian says, turning away from the door. Something catches his eye; a movement behind the man.  He sees a flash of dark hair, and immediately recognizes his friend.

“Wait,” Sebastian says, stalling. “are you taking the boys on a vacation?” He sees a flash of anger in the man’s eyes, but pretends not to notice. It’s gone in a heartbeat.

“Why, yes,” Mr. Moriarty says, wringing his hands together. “I was going to surprise them with a trip to their grandmother's. It’s been years since they’ve seen her and their cousins.” Sebastian nods eagerly, keeping his eyes fixed on the man.

“Is that so? You see, I got lucky. My cousins only live a few minutes away, I visit them twice a week now. You know, my one cousin owns a boat, and – “

“That’s very nice, Sebastian, but I’m kind of in a rush. Do you mind getting Rich?” Mr. Moriarty places his hand on the doorframe, ready to force entry into the house.

Ready to take out his knife.

Ready to repeat what he had done to the babysitter.

“Hold on, just let me –"  The man’s fist connected with the ten-year-old's jaw with a sickening thud.

Sebastian realized a few things in that moment.

The first was that, at 6’2, the man was going to overtake him.

The second, he would die putting himself between this man and his two sons.

And finally, the sickening thud he had heard was not, in fact, the man’s fist connecting with his jaw, but the crowbar in Jim’s hand connecting with the back of the man’s skull.

The man stumbles, collapsing onto Sebastian. Sebastian yelps and scrambles out from beneath him, stomping down on his outstretched fingers. The man grabs Sebastian’s ankle in a death grip, and Jim swings the crowbar again. The grip slackens.

“LET. GO.” Jim screams, slamming it again and again and again.

Sixteen times Sebastian watches the bar rise. Sixteen times he watches it fall.

“Jim,” he says quietly, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Jim’s breathing is labored, his hair is in an array, and he has specks of blood spotted across his face.

“Jim,” he repeats, grabbing the boy’s wrist. Jim drops the weapon, and looks down at what he’s done.

His father - what’s left – is unrecognizable. His head, which took most of the blows, has transformed into a mist of bright red, just beginning to dry into a black crust. The sour smell of urine fills the air.

“Jesus,” Sebastian grabs Jim’s head, forcing the boy to turn away. Moments later, Jim vomits into the shrubbery. Sebastian grabs Jim’s hand, tugging the boy down the drive and around the corner.

He crouches, grabbing Jim’s face delicately and making them eye-level.

“Jim,” he asks, “where’s Rich?” Jim stares, not at Sebastian but at a point beyond his head.

“Jim!” Sebastian moves his head to that his eyes are directly in Jim’s field of vision. Jim snaps out of his daze.

“Rich…Rich is still at Rachel’s.”Jim jumps. _Rich is still at Rachel’s._ “We have to get him.” Sebastian nods.

“Stay here,” he commands, turning and running back towards his house.

He was not about to let his best friend step over the body of his viciously murdered father.

o.O.o

 Sebastian returns, followed by a red SUV.

“Ready, Jim?” When Jim doesn’t respond, Sebastian gently picks him up, tucking one arm below the boy’s knees and the other around his back, and carries him over, pushing him into the backseat and clicking his belt into place. He climbs in next to him, giving his twenty-year old brother, Michael Moran, directions to the Burlingame household.

His brother speeds, going well over the limit, skidding at the turns and narrowly avoiding a collision with a mailbox.

When Michael was a very young, he had accidentally stabbed his hand when slicing an avocado. He will not tell you how he did it, only that it was bad enough to slice a tendon.

His mother drove him to the ER in a manor similar to the one he was using to drive to Rachel’s house.

When they pull in, Jim jumps out of the car, barreling through the door and almost slipping on the blood in the foyer. He dashes up the stairs, undeterred, and bursts into the room where he left Richard, with Sebastian hot on his heels.

“Rich?” He calls, running over to the closet.

No answer.

“ _Rich?”_  His voice fills with trepidation. He jumps, his fingertips catching the ledge of the cave. Sebastian follows, stooping to let Jim rest his feet on his shoulders.

Jim sees the back of a head nestled deeply in a fort of pillows.

“Rich?” He gently reaches out. “You can come out now. You’re safe. We’re safe.”

The boy doesn’t stir.

Jim reaches forwards, pulling back the blanket. It falls away, revealing a stuffed porcupine and some throw pillows.

Jim shrieks, tumbling backwards and landing on Sebastian’s chest, knocking both boys to the ground.

_Richrichrichrich_

Jim’s mind is in a frantic flurry. For the first time in years, he feels snot dribble down his nose and his face grow hot with tears. His mind spins, generating a list of possible hiding places where his little brother could have taken refuge.

“We need to find him,” he urges, clawing at Sebastian’s shirt. The larger boy nods.

Right on cue, they hear a shriek from downstairs.

Jim doesn’t spare Sebastian a glance as he bolts. They pass the mess in the foyer, sliding to a halt in front of Sebastian’s older brother.

“Jim,” the boy says, blocking the doorway to the dining room.

Jim’s entire world crashes as he realizes the only reason a man would do that. “No.”

“Sebastian, take Jim out front. I’ll call the cops.” Sebastian obeys his brother’s orders, wrapping his arms around Jim and picking him up baby-doll style, just as before. Jim buries his tiny head into Sebastian’s chest.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he begs, barely more than a whisper. “Tell me your brother’s an idiot, that he’s made a mistake. That he’s making me worry over nothing.” Sebastian’s silent as he carries him out the front yard, placing his lips to dark, matted hair.

“I can’t, Jim. You know that.”

o.O.o

Inside, Michael  grabs the blue throw blanket, tucking it around the small, crumpled body. He makes sure to cover the face staring up at him; it reminds him too much of the one he had seen in tears only moments before.

He dials the phone.

“Hmm, officer? Yes, there’s been an accident. No ambulance is needed. I’ll wait.” He hangs up with a click.


End file.
